Think Before You Sew

An article by Rachel    Comments Off

On Friday evening, I was super excited to sew. It was my first chance to sit down and sew all week, and I was ready to make some serious head way on my newest project. I had already cut out all the wedges for Oh, Fransson’s New Wave quilt. the sashing fabric was ready to go. So I started to get moving on the project.

Now the instruction suggest determining the layout before sewing on the sashing, which isn’t a bad idea. None the less, I chose to ignore it. I thought lets sew on all the sashing, then determine the layout, which isn’t a bad idea either. Only it would be an even better idea if I thought about which side to sew on the sashing. In my hast to make progress, I sewed the sashing on the same side of every block. This doesn’t work so well when half the blocks orient in the opposite direction. Evidence #1:

Of course, I didn’t figure out the error of my ways until, I sewed the sashing to the very last block. Ugh! So half the blocks, 56 blocks to be exact, needed to be unpicked. I’ve spend the rest of the weekend curled up in various corners unpicking blocks. As I write this blog entry, I have 12 blocks remaining. Actually, I’ve had to unpick some blocks twice due to directional fabric. Maybe this isn’t the quilt for directional fabric. I thing this is the biggest unpicking mistake that I’ve made in years.

Sadly, all this handwork is wearing out my right hand, well on top of working at a computer for 40 hrs a week, plus other activities. I think I’m suffering from some sort of repetitive task soreness/injury. I don’t want to go to a doctor only to be told that I need to give my hand a rest. There’s no time for a rest. There are quilts to be made. I guess I’ll stick with Ibuprofen for the time being.

In between unpicking blocks, I did get the remaining block prepped.

This pretty pile inspires me to keep on going. With a bit of luck all of my blocks will be in this pile by Wednesday.